Gareth Jenkins was the architect of the Horizon IT system at the center of the Post Office scandal, responsible not only for building it but for defending it in court.
As an expert, he was highlighted by Mail to refute accusations that it was computers, not subpostmasters, that caused money to disappear from agency accounts.
As a result, he is under police investigation on suspicion of perjury.
In a series of filings, it denied that there were “bugs, errors and defects” in the broader Horizon system.
This makes him a crucial witness in the public inquiry, so important that he was summoned to give testimony for four days, one more than even the former chief executive of Correios. Paula Vennelles.
Defensive opening
Unlike many of the former Post Office and Fujitsu employees who have given testimony so far, he chose not to begin with an apology to those whose lives and livelihoods were ruined.
Instead, he chose to defend Horizon. Asked about the High Court ruling that paved the way for the release of hundreds of sub-postal agents, he rejected the judge’s conclusion that the system was “not robust at all” and insisted it had worked well.
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“There were clearly issues during the pilots, and clearly there were individual issues that affected individual branches…but overall I felt the systems were working well.”
Jenkins apologized in his statements to former sub-postmasters Seema Misra and Noel Thomas, who were wrongfully convicted and jailed.
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Investigation into Horizon’s predecessor will be reported in the fall
With a gray beard and gray hair, giving evidence in a white shirt and charcoal jacket, Mr. Jenkins may know more about Horizon than anyone else.
This knowledge led the Postal Service to increasingly rely on him for advice, as complaints and concerns about the tide of lawsuits based on Horizon’s evidence began to pile up.
When examining a case, he said and treated each one as his “day job,” noting the specifics of the particular agency’s accounts and examining whether there was any evidence of a bug.
I am not aware of system problems
He told the inquiry he was initially unaware of problems in the wider system because it was not his role to deal with them, and he did not think to ask, even when giving witness statements and evidence in court.
“What I knew was that bugs that actually impacted accounts were very rare,” he said.
“There was good monitoring to detect them, and they were corrected soon after. So in terms of what was actually there in the live system at any given time, it was very rare for there to be bugs that could cause problems.
“Obviously, looking back, I realize maybe I should have done more research.”
Former engineer defends Horizon system
Broader questions “not relevant” to the essays
Jenkins also admitted that once he was aware of the wider problems with Horizon, he did not always disclose them in court.
“I believe I told the truth and the whole truth with regards to the Horizon system being operational in specific branches at the specific times I analyzed the data,” he said.
Asked by investigating counsel Jason Beer KC why he did not mention information about other faults and defects in other parts of the Post Office network, he said: “I didn’t see whether they were relevant in these specific cases.”
His position appears to be that he was not truly an expert nor was he fully aware of the serious impact that his words and actions could have on criminal trials.
I never talked about the obligations of expert witnesses
Jenkins insists that at no point was he explicitly informed of the special responsibilities that come with being an expert witness, including those of legal disclosure. He also accused the Postal Service’s legal teams of “putting words in his mouth”.
Ultimately, but too late for many, it was these failures that paralyzed Horizon’s processes.
Legal advice commissioned by the Post Office council in 2013but undisclosed for another five years, concluded that Mr Jenkins’ evidence was unreliable and potentially placed the organization in breach of its duties as a prosecutor.
“Too late” apology
For Misra, arrested in part based on Jenkins’ evidence in 2010, it took 11 years for her conviction to be overturned. Fourteen years later, she saw him for the first time since then and watched as he again gave evidence about her.
“At the trial I was very, very happy and hopeful, there is an IT specialist from Fujitsu arriving and everything will be fine,” she told Sky News.
“But he protected the brand and achieved this, and I was sentenced to prison for 15 months.”
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